A New York Holiday
by sapientia paucis
Summary: A rote business trip to New York is made less dull when Ginny encounters another magically inclined redhead. BtvS crossover, oneshot.


For posterity's sake: I don't own any of it.

**A New York Holiday  
**

Ginny Weasley is in a hotel lobby when the ball drops, and as 2000 starts she thinks of her family, safely asleep in Ottery St. Catchpole, where it's already six in the morning. She didn't mean to be away on New Years, but when the Ministry mentioned a job in New York, she jumped at the opportunity; a junior undersecretary, she was barely afforded the chance to travel. It was only once she was committed to the assignment that she realised it was on a holiday.

She sighs, looking to a television over the bar, and watches Muggles celebrating in Times Square. Bored, she looks to her left, at a middle aged man in an expensive suit and a young woman in an expensive dress, talking over expensive cocktails and champagne. She looks to her right, where a group is celebrating. In the middle of the cluster of Muggles, she catches sight of a girl whose hair colour, strand for stand, matches her own. Their eyes meet, and Ginny looks back to her drink, embarrassed to have been caught by the subject of her observation. She finishes the soda and heads up to her room.

Ginny wakes when her magical alarm goes off at six thirty, ringing impatient and shrill until she gets out of bed. She dresses in Muggle business attire before remembering that she has today free; even the overworked New York wizards who planned meetings over the holidays take the first of January off. Already awake, Ginny changes into jeans and a sweater and heads to the hotel restaurant, hoping to find it open for an early breakfast. Said hopes, sadly, are dashed when she reads the sign on its door: "We open for breakfast at 7:30 on January 1st. Happy New Year!"

"Bloody holidays," she mutters. "Damned impractical, they are." She wishes she'd thought to bring a coat down when she steps outside the hotel to smoke. In her few stressful months with the Ministry, she's learned that any and everything that calms her down is a good thing to know. Unfortunately for her lungs and liver, this means cigarettes and alcohol, the latter in greater moderation that the former. Molly disapproves, but Ginny isn't thinking of her mum as she raises a stiff, cold hand to her lips. For a moment, with smoke steeping into her organs and hair follicles, she is warm.

Then the cigarette dies, and it was the last in her pack, so she heads inside. Three, she decides, is enough for one morning, and breakfast is due to start within the next few minutes. Waiting in the lobby, she sits in an armchair, crossing and uncrossing her legs, willing the minutes to pass more quickly.

They don't, but a woman in casual slacks steps out of the elevator, talking to herself about some sleeping tree. Ginny is still defrosting, and her mind is foggy because she's not yet had her morning tea, so she pays her companion little mind, and then the restaurant doors are pushed open by a groggy boy. She rushes in, only to put her plate together carefully.

Half an hour later, she is still eating this first plate of food, though she's finished two cups of tea. The redhead from last night, hair in short, messy layers around her face, seats herself with the neatly groomed woman, who greets her, cup of coffee in hand, as Willow. Ginny, finally awake, realises that they are mother and daughter and that Willow is not a tree, but rather the girl, who looks roughly her own age. She runs a hand through her ponytail and heads over to the others, smiling.

"Ginny Weasley," she says, offering out her right hand. The older woman, reddish hair in a bun, looks up as though surprised at Ginny's professional demeanour. She remembers too late that Muggles her age have just started university, and that they're regarded still as children in America. The air is still, a little too warm, and rather awkward.

"Willow Rosenberg," the girl offers, extending her own hand and shaking. "And this is my mom."

"Sheila. Very pleased to meet you."

"Same to you," replies Ginny.

"Are you on vacation from school?"

"I've actually finished."

"You must look young for your age, then. I was sure you were in the same grade as Willow."

"Oh, I'm not in university," says Ginny, back-pedalling. "I work."

It's silent again. Ginny looks down at Willow, who looks down at her toast.

"I'll be going." She winces at the curtness of her sentence.

"Cool-like. Most cool, even. And if you want to, we would take a walk later." Willow looks up. "Or, you know, a thing which is else."

Ginny can't help but smile at the girl's babbling; it makes her seem younger than the collegiate clothing and trendy haircut imply. It's cute. "Oh, a walk would be lovely. I'm in 314, when you're done with breakfast."

She retrieves her purse from her table and takes the stairs rather than the elevator, still used to walking from seven years at Hogwarts and turned off of elevators by their flaky service at the Ministry. In her room, she opens the top drawer of the armoire, pulls out a new pack of cigarettes, and lights one. The air is oppressive and dry, altogether too controlled. She opens a window, allowing the sharp January wind to mingle with the heater's emissions.

There's a knock on the door, which Ginny opens with a cigarette between her lips. She wonders briefly whether an unpleasant cocktail that's part boredom and part stress will turn her into a chain smoker yet.

Willow grins on the threshold, choking slightly on Ginny's smoke. "Nice room you have. Big bed. Wind. Smoke."

"Right," she winces, letting the girl into her room and shutting the door behind them. "Sorry about that. D'you mind awfully?"

"I'm in college," says the student lightly. "I've seen far worse." She stops for a second, wrinkling her nose as she thinks. "Like this one time, my friend started making out with a vampire."

"Vampire?" asks Ginny.

"Did I say that? No, no, no. I meant to say man pirate!" stutters Willow. Her face floods red. "Oh, I suck at lying," she groans, flopping back onto the bed. "Yeah, so, okay, there are vampires, and…"

"I know."

"You know? Praise the gods." She pauses, eyes lighting up as an idea strike her. "Are you a Watcher? Do you know Giles? Or Wesley? Because, I mean you two are pretty close in the age department, and it'd really be kinda funny if you knew each other. Small world and all."

Ginny cuts her off. "I'm of a different branch of magic. I've heard of Watchers, but my community's insular, and we've a world of our own." She sits next to Willow. "Have you, by chance, in your studies with this Giles bloke, heard of Hogwarts?"

"Of course I have! It's massively famous!"

Her face, Ginny observes, is still red. "Do you find it too warm in here? If you fancied a stronger breeze, I could open the window more." She stands.

"It's not that," Willow says, pulling her down. "I'm just… well… I don't know if I can really say it."

"Demonstrate?"

"Okay."

And then she reaches out and kisses Ginny, and the world is suddenly red, curtained in by her soft long hair, and it's in her eyes and mixed with Willow's. The girl starts to pull away when Ginny moves her hands from her sides and rests them on the small of Willow's back. They stop kissing for a minute, enough to breathe in and to look into each other's eyes, affirming that this is more than right.

It is perfect, and Ginny is suddenly rather happy she had to travel on the holidays.


End file.
